Bahrain scraps foreign labour sponsorship scheme

FOREIGN LABOUR: Bahrain scraps existing sponsorship system in bid to reduce need for expat workers. (Getty Images)

Bahrain said on Tuesday it would scrap its existing sponsorship system for foreign workers in the hope of reducing its need for expatriate labour, a first in a region often criticised by rights groups over the issue.

"We're working on identifying a ceiling on expatriate workers in Bahrain," said Labour Minister Majeed al-Alawi in a statement published by Bahrain's official news agency.

He added the country's Labour Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA) will determine the limit in a study this year.

Under the new regulations, foreign workers will be directly sponsored by the LMRA and therefore able to move jobs without the consent of their previous employer.

The changes will be effective from August.

The previous system, which is common in the Gulf Arab states and under which employers do the sponsoring, has long been criticised by human rights groups for placing workers at the whim of their employers, who usually take their passports.

Bahrain's population grew to about 1.05 million in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available, on an influx of foreign workers.

There are about 500,000 Bahraini citizens.

"The willingness is there ... across the country to reduce the number of foreign workers, but it's too early to see whether they're able to do that," said an economist who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

He said that, for the foreseeable future, there will be no substitute in regional labour markets for both unskilled construction workers from Asia and qualified white-collar workers.

Rules to increase the share of nationals in the labour market of Saudi Arabia were largely not adhered to during the recent boom years, he said.

"The sponsorship system has been a curse," said Marietta Dias of the Bahrain-based Migrant Workers Protection Society.

She said the new regulations were unlikely to include domestic workers such as house maids, who she said have the worst employment conditions of all in the region. (Reuters)

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READERS' COMMENTS

F Z A
Posted by Peter, Dubai on Saturday 16 May 2009 at 19:31 UAE time


The various Free Zone Authorities in the UAE sponsor all those working in the free zones, and employees are allowed to switch from one company another within certain limits. This exercise has been successful thus far. The Bahraini move will be similar and possibly more elaborate, safeguarding both employer and employees' rights.

New labor law
Posted by Suresh, dubai, UAE on Friday 8 May 2009 at 15:50 UAE time


Can we hope that the governments will think their laws through this time instead of hastily announcing them ? Too often laws announced as knee jerk reactions to situations cause more ham than good.

The authorities need to either conduct opinion polls or invite suggestions from expats and listen to their ideas before giong ahead.

Shadi misses the point
Posted by Peter Peter, dubai, UAE on Friday 8 May 2009 at 13:28 UAE time


I am sorry to say Shadi misses the point completely and so do many others.

As employers we are ready to compete in the open market for talent but unlike other European or Asian countries I am also a slave of this system.

Each visa costs me roughly Dhs. 8,000/- and an additional 3 - 4,000/- for the new recruits' air ticket. It also costs me an average of Dhs. 5,000/- in ads and agent's fees to find someone.

More often than not the recruit is not ideal as the local laws do not allow me to try out a person for a couple of weeks to see if he is good enough and is actually capable of doing everything he/she claims in the CV. I have to spend 15 - 17,000/- dirhams per recruit and have only his CV and one or two interviews to make my decision.

If after all this I have to bring in staff, train them and then loose them to someone who pays a few hundred more then it is totally unfair.

In 2005 we lost Dhs. 1,00,000/- on seven visas of staff that jumped jobs or were fired within a few months. Some were incompetent others had accepted our job when their third visit visa was about to expire - with the full intention of jumping the job once they had time to look around. One was found stealing from the company. How many small businesses can survive such losses and disruption ?

Please also add to this fact that over the last few years rents have gone through the roof , business levels have fallen and there is unfair competition from those expats who do not take a residence visa but keep living and working off visit visas that they can stamp at the airport or the Hatta border for no cost at all .

Every week I get CVs from staff who had fancy salaries but were either not paid on time or lost their jobs because the company could not afford to keep them.

Only when you take all this into account you will understand the real heroics of the small and medium employers who have doggedly kept their businesses running and paid salaries on time !

Yes it is true that many businesses will fold if employers have to compete for talent in an open market. But think of this :

Nowhere in the world can a business survive if the rents jump by more than 100% in one year. That happened in Dubai.

Nowhere in the world can a business survive if the CEO has to spend weeks and months , year after year , fighting his landlord from evicting him on some silly excuse , simply because he has another tenant willing to pay double. This happens in Dubai.

Nowhere in the world can a business survive if they can not hire AND fire at will ! As an employer there are umpteen rules which make things difficult if not impossible at times.

Nowhere in the world has there been such a sudden influx of population where infrastructure , local transportation , accommodation , office space , warehousing facilities etc. just could not keep up with demand. All this happened in Dubai.

So let us accept that Dubai is a phenomenon unlike anything else in history. It is a amazingly bold experiment. It is a dream we all want to share in . We all came here for our own reasons and accepted what we got. Some had it better than others.

To the lesser or greater degree this is true of the other GCC countries also.

Yes if the workers want their freedom , so do we the employers.

I think this liberalization is an excellent step in the right direction and we support it. All we want is that the employers also get a fair deal.

Let us ALL have a level playing field then we can all enjoy the game - together.

Thumbs UP!
Posted by Kevin on Thursday 7 May 2009 at 10:47 UAE time


Thumbs for Bahrain..!
It goes untold, the governement will have to lay down some guielines to ensure the employer does not have a negative impact.
The move will encourage the notion Bahrain to be a better place to live in the ME(which I believe will be).
If the government can get the right laws in place to meet common grounds for the employer and employee...this patch of Heaven will flourish..!
Good luck guys..!

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